The article, Beyond Obamacare: What’s Ahead for U.S. Health Care in 2018, states,

“The debate over U.S. health care reform and the future of the Affordable Care Act dominated headlines in 2017, but that subject could take a backseat this year as the Trump administration faces other challenges, according to Robert I. Field, professor of law and health care management at Drexel University, who is also a lecturer at Wharton. “They’ve got to keep the government funded; they’ve got to deal with Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP); they’ve got to deal with the cost sharing reductions under Obamacare,” he said, listing some of the issues legislators would face in the year ahead.

Field and Wharton health care management professor Mark Pauly recently appeared on the Knowledge@Wharton show on Wharton Business Radio on SiriusXM channel 111 to discuss the key issues facing U.S. health care in 2018. Here are the key points from their conversation. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.)

Life after the Individual Mandate: The “individual mandate” under the 2010 Affordable Care Act will end next year, per the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump shortly before Christmas. The mandate requires Americans to buy their own health insurance or face a penalty if they are not already covered by their employer or by a government program such as Medicaid or Medicare. The new tax law eliminates the penalty beginning in 2019.”